Your Views

Congress has no role in baseball business

The Kane County Cougars may praise (in solidarity with others in their industry) the "Save Minor League Baseball Task Force" organized by some members of Congress to prevent Major League Baseball from eliminating failing minor league franchises, but that doesn't mean their goal is a justifiable use of tax money collected from fans and non-fans, in Kane County or elsewhere.

The effort by Major League Baseball to curtail the numbers of minor league baseball teams is a rational response to business reality and also reflects the sentiments of the citizens of these teams' communities. If these teams are not self-supporting in their respective markets, then the people themselves have voted with their pocketbooks, as it should be. Congress should not interfere.

More than three-quarters of minor league teams do operate successfully, and of course our Kane County Cougars are very successful. Our family, as do so many others, enjoys them every season. MLB will survive very well by drawing from the players on those teams that, like our Cougars, have adequate support in their own communities.

Baseball, our national sport, will not be hurt by the disappearance of non-self-supporting teams. Their respective communities already acknowledge these teams' irrelevance by demonstrating a lack of financial support for them. Why should the rest of the country tell them they are wrong?

Jack Hallett

Geneva

Marijuana madness

Now that the self-righteous Mount Prospect governing body has elected to ban the sales of marijuana in its hallowed boundaries, the village must now continue its crusade against all that is unhealthy to its constituents by immediately banning all sales of liquor and alcohol, all forms of tobacco and all vaping products to truly show its sincere concern for our welfare.

You can't fall back on the tired quote and say that there hasn't been enough time to study the effects of the evil weed - the propaganda movie "Reefer Madness" was in the theaters in 1936, over 83 years ago!

Now, how will the residence of our selectively moralistic village continue to fund past and ongoing underestimated projects and any future follies without the additional revenue of reefer madness?

John K. Nolan

Mount Prospect